


lights out, follow the noise

by ivyrobinson



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, and they were quarantined together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyrobinson/pseuds/ivyrobinson
Summary: they might be terrible at feelings but at least the sex is good. (quarantined together dimfa fic)
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry & Marfa (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The administrative assistant doesn’t even look up from her computer, “I assure you, Miss Spektor, we are taking this virus very seriously and need to close the dorms for at least two weeks for deep cleaning. You can go home in the meantime. Think of it as an extended spring break.” 

Being away from school isn’t her actual concern, her lack of an actual home is one. “I live in the dorms year round.” 

The woman bites her lip, “Perhaps a hotel room then?” 

A hotel room for 2 weeks, even at the dirt cheap, bed bug ridden ones would cause a big dent in the savings she did have.

This is what she gets for choosing a different college than Paulina and Dunya. Polly had gotten a full scholarship, and was a mastermind with finances, so she had wrangled a (albeit tiny) apartment where her and Dunya live. 

A plane ticket to where they are would damage her own bank account as much as staying at a hotel will. And, as much as they are her very best friends in the world, and she shared a bedroom with them growing up in a group home, the thought of doing so again when they are a couple and not supposed to go outside very much seems like a potential friendship ender. 

“What about off campus housing?” She tries. She can’t really afford that either, but it has to be a better investment than a hotel or the street. 

The woman sighs, clearly wishing to no longer have this conversation with Marfa. Yes, Marfa’s close relationship with near-homelessness is tiring to her too, but she’s learned to live with it. “They’re all rented out.” 

“Need a place to stay, Spektor?” comes a voice from behind her. 

Marfa winces, upon recognition of said voice. She does not want to turn around. However, since she doesn’t she gets to see the woman’s face light up. Whether it’s in reaction to who is talking (Marfa does not have the same reaction but she understands when others do) or that she thinks she no longer has to deal with Marfa, she’s not quite certain. 

“Are you offering, Sudayev?” She asks. 

Since she will not look at him, he leans against the desk next to her. “Yeah, but-” 

The administrative assistant interrupts them, “Well, this all works out, you can stay with Dmitry.” Under her breath, she adds, “Not a bad way to spend it.” 

Officially, Marfa knows her choice is between homelessness and staying with Dmitry Sudayev, but still she takes a moment before agreeing.

“Ugh fine,” she says, pushing away from the desk. “Come help me get my stuff.” 

She doesn’t even own a lot of stuff, but she may as well make him work for it. 

Marfa has exactly one box and a backpack of belongings to take from the dorms and she happily allows Dmitry to carry both. 

They’ve gotten along only once since they met. It was an incoming students event the spring before freshman year, and she had felt uncomfortably out of place, which was not like her. Dmitry is never uncomfortably out of place and they discovered they had a similar history of foster and group homes. He had been with his current foster father, Vlad, for almost two years at that point. Marfa had been at the group home with Polly and Dunya for three. Later that night the real mixer began, and they drunkenly made out at a party. Which was about as typical as any other high school experience Marfa had. 

The issue arose when freshman year actually began and after the first week, Marfa had a series of intense hook ups with Imogen, a girl in her English 101 class, who easily threw Marfa over the moment she thought she had a chance with Dmitry. She was wrong, and came back begging prettily and ended up with her second rejection. This may have not initially been Dmitry’s fault but this was not the last time they would lure a girl away from the other. 

At one point, near the beginning of their sophomore year, she dated his roommate, Gleb for several months. Several long months of annoying, ill timed interruptions and his mocking her. It’s really the daily close contact that ramps up their shared animosity of each other. When her and Gleb break up after four months of dating, she’s not sure if the reason she initiated the break up was because of the actual boy she was dating or because of his roommate. 

Today he brings her up three flights of stairs and opens the door to… a studio apartment. 

Marfa’s not quite certain what she’s done to deserve this hell. 

Dmitry drops her box and bag off in front of the foot of his bed. 

“This is a studio,” she points out. 

“Right,” he responds. “I started to say this before Janine interrupted.” 

“This sucks,” she sighs, throwing herself into the armchair a foot away from the bed. 

“Hey,” Dmitry says, “it’s for only two weeks.” 

“This isn’t an elaborate plan to try to make my life miserable is it?” 

“Marfa, if I was going to torture you, I would not do it at the risk of also torturing myself,” he says. He opens a tall cabinet that is stocked full of food. “I just know what it’s like to be homeless.” 

Ugh, sincerity and kindness she can’t deal with from him. Instead she focuses on his pantry. “I didn’t take you for a panic hoarder.” 

“I’m not,” he says, “This is mostly from the regular care packages Vlad sends me. The threat of the Coronavirus has amped up what he sends though.” 

“You should probably donate some of that stuff.” 

“This is the stuff I haven’t donated,” he tells her. 

The apartment is in awkward silence after that. Finally, Marfa jumps up, grabbing her backpack. “I’m going to go use your shower.” 

Dmitry is gathering food from the pantry, and he just nods in response. 

After getting out of the shower and twisting her hair into a braid and pulling on a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt, she’s had time to get some perspective. She’s definitely lived in worse situations than this. The little she can remember of living with her own mother was definitely a worse situation than this. Dmitry is annoying but relatively harmless. 

The only real danger they have is murdering each other. 

She steps back out to the main room and sees he’s cooked an actual dinner. 

Marfa eyes it suspiciously, “Can you actually cook?” 

He hands her a plate, “Only one way to find out.”

She takes it. Annoyingly, he can cook rather well. 

Dmitry grins without comment during the meal. 

Marfa doesn’t bother asking about sleeping arrangements because given the entire furniture situation was a tiny table and chair, an armchair and a bed. It is unlikely either of them will offer to sleep on the hardwood floor. 

She climbs into the bed while Dmitry disappears into the bathroom to change for the night. She unlocks her phone to let Dunya and Polly know her living situation for the next two weeks. Dunya’s reaction is the emoji that is crying with laughter, while Polly reminds her she’s not a lawyer yet and cannot help her get out of a murder charge. 

She sets her phone on the floor, not bothering to answer that. Marfa knows how to behave. 

Dmitry comes out of the bathroom, freshly showered, his hair wet and wearing only pajama bottoms. 

Marfa masks an appreciative look, because his attractiveness is a fact that is usually easy to ignore. “Is that necessary?” 

He grabs the remote to turn the television off as he gets into his side of the bed. “Is it bothering you?” 

“Only my gagging reflex,” she lies, before turning on her side away from him. 

“Try to resist the urge to cuddle me,” Dmitry warns her. 

“Oh I’ll try,” Marfa promises. “But I do apologize in advance if you wake up to my arm hugging your throat.” 

He throws a pillow back at her. She throws it on the floor. 

It’s quiet then. Just the sound of them shifting every few moments, and breathing. She resists the urge to rub her feet together. 

Eventually she drifts off. 

-

Marfa awakes to the feeling of the bed dipping. It takes her a moment to realize she hasn’t awakened in some random bed and that she’s stuck with Dmitry for two weeks. She opens one eye to see him pulling a T-shirt on over his head and switching his pajama pants for shorts. 

She closes her eye again, attempting to avoid conversation as much as possible and waits for the soft click of the door before rolling over. The bed is still warm from where he slept and smells of his body wash. 

She sits up before she can think too much about that, picking her phone up as she stands to tell her future lawyer her services are not quite needed yet. 

She brushes her teeth, and pulls her hair from its braid. She puts on a light application of make up, even though she didn’t currently have anyone to impress and changes out her pajamas for leggings and a sweatshirt. 

She has nowhere to go. She makes up the bed and lays on top of it, and turns on the television just as Dmitry comes back into the apartment. 

“I thought you’d still be sleeping,” he comments, stripping off his slightly sweaty shirt. 

“Are shirts not allowed in your apartment?” She complains. 

Dmitry glances over at her, “If you’re looking for my permission to take yours off, you don’t need it.” 

She grabs one of his pillows and throws it at him, and he easily dodges it. 

“Go shower and put on some clothes,” she tells him, pointing towards his bathroom. 

“You’ve certainly made yourself at home,” he tells her, but he disappears into the bathroom afterwards at least. 

Her eyes flicker over to the door as she hears the shower start. She forces her attention back to the television. She is certainly not going to think about that. 

It is just the normal dislike of him, plus forced proximity and general fear of doing something stupid that has her brain even headed in any sort of direction. 

Marfa is a completely rational person. 

She grips her phone to scroll through mindlessly, but it doesn’t help anything. 

“You look freaked out,” Dmitry says. 

She starts slightly, because she had lost track of the sound of the shower. “Just the news.” 

He reaches over, taking her phone from her and setting it on the nightstand on his side. “Let’s have at least one ground rule. No reading the news for more than five minutes every day.” 

“Isn’t that a little unfair, though?” She asks as he sits beside her on the bed. “When you can’t even read to begin with?”

Dmitry leans his head back against the headboard, “You’ve really helped me understand the saying- no good deed goes unpunished.”

She should try to be nicer to him, she supposes. It just goes against her first instinct. So she does the only other thing she can think of to show her appreciation- she hands him over the remote. 

The day is agonizingly slow, and after lunch, Dmitry sits in the armchair with his headphones on and his laptop open. She takes her own laptop over to the window, and works on her own schoolwork while also messaging with some friends. Other than Dunya and Polly, she doesn’t mention where she’s staying. 

Her friends here know her history too well with Dmitry and would be insufferable about the arrangement. She ignores Gleb’s message of concern for her because she also knows the only decision she can make worse in this situation is texting an ex. 

She’s more distracted by looking out the window than she is on her conversations or schoolwork. The streets below are eerily quiet and empty. She can’t remember another time when Boston seemed so empty. 

Dmitry leans over her to look out the window. She pulls out her headphones as he speaks. “This is going to be weird on St Patrick’s Day.” 

She tilts her head up to look at him, and then pulls back slightly when she realizes how close he is to her. “People are going to be stupid on St Patrick’s Day.” 

It’s Boston, after all. 

“Let’s get delivery for dinner,” Dmitry says, stepping away. “Your choice.” 

“What a benevolent God you’ve turned out to be,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. “Pizza and I’ll pay.” 

It was literally the least she can do. 

He looks like he might argue but then shrugs. “Whatever you want, I’m not picky.” 

It’s tempting to order the worst toppings she can think of, but it’s not worth it if she can’t eat it as well. So she just orders pepperoni and leaves it at that. 

-

Marfa had hoped the pizza might make more than one meal but her and Dmitry demolished the entire thing fairly easily. After she showers, she gets the remote and climbs back into bed. 

At least the bed and water pressure of the shower are improvements from dorm living. 

Dmitry stays in the armchair on his laptop while she watches an old sitcom re-run on the television.

She’s not even certain at what point she falls asleep, but when she wakes up the television is off and Dmitry is asleep on his side of the bed. 

She sneaks a peak at him, he's lying on his side facing her, an arm stretched out across the bed, his fingertips a whisper away from her. 

Marfa’s seized by the sudden urge to get up and go...somewhere but there’s nowhere for her to go so she just forces her eyes shut again as she feels him roll over on the bed. 

She throws an arm over her eyes. “What are you doing?” 

She hears his drawer open up, “Going for a run. You should come too, it’ll be good for you to see the outside.” 

Marfa groans in response, but she’s been inside for two days straight and she’s bored enough to try. “I guess.” 

-

This may be the worst decision Marfa ever made. She knew Dmitry was holding back as well, so she could keep up with his pace and that made her even more upset. 

“We can head back if you want,” Dmitry offers, turning around to face her as he runs. No, they were at a walking pace now. 

She’s seriously conflicted because it goes against everything in her to show any weakness to Dmitry but also, she may die from exercise. If she dies from exercise though, she will not have to live with the consequences. 

“You do this every day?” She asks him, taking the proffered water bottle. “By choice?” 

He laughs, “Spektor, I can’t believe you’re this out of shape.” 

“Yoga requires a different skill set,” she points out and hands the bottle back to him. It’s probably against guidelines to be sharing water bottles but given their current situation they are screwed if one of them gets sick anyway. “I’m spiritually healthy.” 

“I doubt that,” he retorts. “Do you want a piggy ride back to the apartment?”

“I think you’re just trying to show off at this point.”

Dmitry shrugged, which isn’t exactly a denial. Well, if he wanted to do the extra work. 

He can also see the moment she gives in because he gets in position and she hops onto his back, locking her legs in front of him. 

His hands slid underneath her legs to hold her in place. This may have also been a bad decision. Her heart is racing for a completely different reason now. 

“You’re a lot lighter than I thought you’d be,” he comments. 

She unlocks her hands to hit him in the front of the shoulder. “Why do you make it so easy to dislike you?” 

“We all have to excel at something,” he responds, staring straight ahead. Which is for the best, given the closeness of their faces. 

His apartment is closer than she thought it was and she doesn’t even complain when he carries her up the stairs without asking. He deposits her on the bed rather unceremoniously when they get back and goes to the sink to wash his hands. 

Marfa kicks off her shoes, and tries to ignore all the various sensations now working their way through her body after that run and piggy back ride. 

Dmitry tosses the bottle of soap at her when he’s done. “I’m going to go take a shower.” 

He doesn’t wait for a response before the bathroom door shuts behind him. 

-

They break out the alcohol that evening. The parade has been canceled, stricter rules of going outside are being enforced and in a day full of bad decisions all around, alcohol sounds amazing. 

If nothing else, Marfa is looking for something to numb the awareness she has of Dmitry’s every move since they returned from their run that morning. 

“Do you want anything to mix it with?” Dmitry asks. 

“No,” Marfa replies from her spot on the floor where she’s eating the fettuccine Alfredo he made for dinner. “Just give me a straight shot of it.” 

He fills a shot glass full of vodka and hands it to her, some of it sloshing over the side. He fills his own and they both down it. 

“Another?” He asks. 

She hands her shot glass back to him and he fills again. Two shots is probably enough until after dinner is fully eaten. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t think of this sooner,” Marfa tells him, focusing back on her food. 

“I didn’t want to share my alcohol with you,” he tells her. “But it seems like this shit is going to get worse before it gets better.” 

At the reminder, she hands him back her shot glass. Three shots is a good amount. 

“You’re tiny,” Dmitry tells her but fills the shot glass anyway. “Are you sure you handle this?” 

“Tiny but Russian,” she reminds him. 

“Far be it for me to underestimate a fellow Russian,” Dmitry tells her. “At least not when it comes to Vodka.” 

“Feel free to underestimate me in every other way,” Marfa tells him with a wink. 

“Too late,” he says in return, “I always expect you to destroy me.” 

It’s flattering, in a way. “And here I thought we weren’t going to compliment each other, Sudayev.” 

He just lifts his shot glass up in response. 

-

Marfa starts off at the Greek house from the party they hosted for incoming freshmen, and she’s sitting on the arm of the chair, his hands are in her hair and she’s sliding into his lap and his lips are moving against her. She leans back and her head falls back against the pillow of his bed. His mouth on her breast, her hips arching up to meet his, Dmitry reaches between them and… 

It feels almost physically painful waking up from the dream. She blinks against the darkness of the apartment. The only light coming in front is the moon and signs outside. She can see Dmitry asleep on his back beside her. It takes her a moment to process whether her dream happened or not. (It did not. Well the first part had happened back when she was 17, but everything after the party was pure vodka induced imagination.) 

She’s so stupidly turned on, there’s no room for her to even be mad about it. Clearly she can’t actively ignore the fact she has an attractive roommate, and needs to take care of the tension herself before she goes and does something really stupid about it. 

Sneaking a glance to make sure he’s still in his own Vodka assisted sleep. Her body is flushed with warmth and throbbing with need so she pulls down her shorts and underwear. She can do this quickly and go back to her normal emotions. 

Marfa slides a finger in, trying to figure out how to do this in a discreet manner while still finding the release she needed. However, the thought of getting caught by him only seems to heighten her arousal. 

She closes her eyes, no longer fighting the images of Dmitry on her, in her. 

Marfa feels the bed shift beside her, and she has a passing thought she should probably stop. Try to play it off as something other than it clearly was. The thought evaporates quickly under the haze of need. 

“I’d ask if you’d need help,” she hears Dmitry whisper to her, “But you seem to have this well in hand.” 

She reaches over and pulls his face to hers, and he doesn’t hesitate in kissing her back. 

“Are you offering?” 

He moves his mouth to her neck, his hand on his inner thigh, moving it’s way up before her hand out of the way to replace with his. 

“That must have been some fantasy you were having,” he teases. 

“Shut up,” she says, gasping as he slides a second finger into her. “It wasn’t about you.” 

Marfa wonders if she should feel any shame at the moment, but really can’t bring herself to give a fuck. 

He laughs at her lie, as she pushes down on the waistband of his pants. His hips jerk forward as her hand slides underneath it. 

Dmitry’s mouth is on hers again, overwhelming her. 

He pulls away, “Hold on a sec.” 

She lets out a groan of disappointment as he rolls away from her to pull his pants and boxers down. Marfa sits up to pull off her T-shirt as he grabs a condom from the night table drawer. 

“Somebody’s prepared,” she comments as she watches him roll it on. 

Dmitry glances over at her as though hes going to say something, so she just lies back against the bed. 

Then he’s over her, and she hooks a leg around him as he enters her. Her head falls back, and it’s annoying how good he feels inside of her. His mouth is on her neck against, and she pulls his lips back to hers. 

Raw need over takes her as he thrusts inside of her. Her fingernails dig into the skin of his back, while he reaches between them and she feels the wave of orgasm come over that the end of her dream had denied her. 

A few moments later he comes too, and lifts his weight off of her, collapsing in the spot beside her. Dmitry rolls over, getting up to discard the condom. 

When he comes back, he sits sort of awkwardly on the edge of his side of the bed. Marfa can’t remember the last time she slept in the same bed as someone she just fucked. 

“Do you...cuddle?” 

Marfa makes a face, “Ugh, no.” 

Dmitry looks relieved at that and he slides back into his side of the bed and lays on his back. 

Fuck it, Marfa can just deal with this bad decision later by waking up early and draining her savings to stay at a hotel. 

She rolls onto her side facing away from him. After sex always leaves her body buzzing with energy but there’s nothing to do now and nowhere to go except to try to keep her breathing even. 

After a few minutes, she doesn’t feel anymore settled down so she shifts onto her back. She can feel Dmitry’s attention go to her as she moves. He rolls onto his side facing her as she rolls onto the side facing him. 

“Change your mind about being a cuddler?” He asks as she reaches her hand out to trace his jaw with her fingers. 

“No,” she says, and he leans in and kisses her. 

After all, there’s no more harm that can come from just making a continuous mistake all night long.


	2. don't know if I could find someone who do me like you do

Dmitry’s already up and awake when Marfa wakes up. It ruins her plans to try to make a run for it before he awakes, but she’s growing accustomed to ruined plans. She’s a coward though and doesn’t move as she can hear him moving around the apartment. 

A conversation regarding the night before is nothing she wants to discuss. When she hears the bathroom door click shut, she finally sits up. Despite the fact they have to be somewhere in the sheets, she can not find any of her clothes she had hastily discarded the night before, so she grabs an outfit from her dwindling supply in her backpack. Throwing on a skirt and crop top. 

She’s undoing her braid when Dmitry reappears. Their eyes meet briefly and it’s a race to see who can look away first. 

He pulls in a breath and she can see him pouring cereal out of the corner of her eye, “Mornin.”

“Mornin’,” she returns, maneuvering around him to go into the bathroom to brush her teeth. 

It’s definitely awkward and it seems uncharacteristic of Dmitry to not give her shit for the state he found her in last night, she appreciates it over having to talk about it. And sorry you caught me masturbating in your bed but I thought you were asleep but hey thanks for all the assistance was not a convo she wants to have. 

She lingers in the bathroom, though there’s not much for her to do in there. Her teeth are brushed, her hands are washed and her hair is fixed.

Marfa gives up and goes back into the one other room of the apartment. 

“They’ve shut the city down,” he tells her without looking at her. “All nonessential businesses are being closed, and gatherings are down to ten people or less.” 

Well, fuck. There went any hope she had of escape and alternate lodging. Not that they had been all that practical ideas to begin with. 

“This is getting weird,” she says because she has to say something. 

Then she goes over to the window to look at the empty streets below. She feels Dmitry behind her, taking in the same view as her. 

“We might be here longer than the two weeks,” he says. 

She just nods and steps away. She does not want to reflect on what daily life with Dmitry is going to look like.

-

She spends the day in the armchair, not really focusing on the textbook she’s supposed to be reading. Dmitry takes a call, that she tries not to listen to and then he takes over the bed to watch television. They spend hours avoiding the other one. 

It finally breaks when it’s lunch time and Dmitry reheats the food he made the night before for lunch. Then it’s just an acknowledgment as he passes a plate to her. 

They eat with only the conversation from the television as noise in the apartment. 

In the afternoon she gives up attempting to be studious and focuses on the television. 

“I thought sports were canceled,” she comments when she notes the hockey game on the screen. 

Dmitry starts slightly at the sound of her voice, “They are, this is a classic game.” 

Marfa pulls a face,”Sports have reruns?”

“I guess you could call it that,” he responds, as though he actually had to think about that answer. “Did you want to watch something else?” 

This is a trap, but she answers anyway. “Yes.”

He holds up the remote, “Too bad.”

She gets up to climb on the bed and over to him. He easily holds it away from her grasp. Marfa stands up on the bed, to try to give her a height advantage. Dmitry easily takes her out at the knees and she ends up flat on her back on the bed. 

Marfa pulls herself up on her elbows to pout at him, “Foul.” 

Dmitry places a hand on her bent up knee and leans in and kisses her pout away. She nips at his bottom lip before he pulls away. 

Well, if her choice is between watching sports and this… (She could’ve easily taken ahold of the remote when he was kissing her, she just...forgot.) 

“Guess that means neither of us gets the remote,” he says, and shuts it off, tossing the remote to the far corner of the bed. 

She looks over at where the remote landed. She could easily grab it if she wanted to. (But she won’t.) Dmitry secures her hands above her head anyway. 

She hooks her right foot behind his back to pull him in, and he kisses her. 

-

This time the atmosphere afterwards is far more relaxed. Like a switch hit, an unspoken agreement that kissing, touching, stroking, sex is just on the table now. It takes the pressure off of their interactions now. 

They eat ice cream for dinner. Marfa’s pulled on Dmitry’s shirt for an outfit and she sits cross legged on his bed as she scoops out mint chocolate chip ice cream and calls it a meal. He sits on the floor in his boxers, with a quart of chocolate peanut butter. It’d be weirdly domestic if the world wasn’t so strange overall right now. But since it is, this means nothing. 

Marfa has control over the remote, taken from its long forgotten spot where it was thrown on the bed while Dmitry was getting out the ice cream and spoons. She settles on putting on Roman Holiday. An old Audrey Hepburn movie playing in the background of her evening a strange bit of normalcy in a very abnormal world. 

“Is watching old movies your thing?” Dmitry asks, tipping his head up to look up at her on the bed. 

Marfa considers the question for a moment before deciding the answer, “No, I don’t think so. I had a foster mom who only watched these kind of movies though, and now they’re one of the few kinds of movies I have the attention span for.” 

Sacrificing your life for 2-3 hours for the sake of watching something on screen felt tedious whenever she did try to go to the movies. 

“When did you go into foster care?”

Marfa points her spoon at him accusingly, “Is this the get to know you portion?” 

Dmitry gestures around the room, “There’s no one else to get to know.”

“I’m sure I could make someone up,” she tells him. She constantly got in trouble as a preteen for making up stories of who she was. “But, for the sake of boredom, I was about four. You?”

“Eleven.”

Marfa arches an eyebrow, “Did your parents lose the receipt to return you for that long?”

He reaches up and tugs on her foot, “Cute.”

He stands up and she hands over the quart of ice cream to him. 

“You got placed with Vlad when you were sixteen, right?” Marfa asks. They had skimmed this topic three years earlier when they first met, and she hates that anything was left remembered. 

“Yes,” he says. “And you got placed in a group home because you couldn’t stay out of trouble.”

She shrugs, “It’s their fault, they made my partners in crime my roommates.”

“And where are they now?”

“Quarantining together in Colorado,” Marfa responds. “Purposefully. They’re disgustingly in love.” 

Dmitry comes back towards the bed, “Is that why you choose to come to Boston instead?” 

She shakes her head, “No, the disgustingly in love thing just happened last year.” 

“Is it weird?” He asks. 

“That my two best friends are in love? No,” she says. “Polly was my first kiss though. Nothing romantic, just more of a shared discovery that we both like kissing girls.” 

“And when did you discover you like kissing boys?” 

Marfa looks him up and down, “I’m still thinking about that.” But she tilts her head up when he leans down to kiss her anyway. Then she pushes him away. “Brush your teeth first, peanut butter and mint do not go together.” 

-

The next morning Marfa pretends to not notice Dmitry’s hand splayed on her waist. At least not until he uses it to pull her back underneath him. She hooks a leg around his waist as he enters her. The hourless morning is spent languidly with each other’s bodies. A softer echo of the night before. 

Afterwards she falls back asleep, his breath against her neck. 

When she awakes again, this time much closer to the afternoon, there’s nothing in the bed except a note that says Run in messy boy handwriting. She takes it to mean it’s what he’s doing and not a hastily made warning before he booked it. 

Marfa stretches and gets up and hops in the shower quickly. She secures her hair into two braids and throws on shorts and an oversized sweater and pushes a FaceTime request to Polly. 

Dunya answers, her hair in a top knot and wearing a silk pajama set. Polly sits beside her, her hair down and wearing similar pajamas. 

“Marfa!” Dunya exclaims. 

“Oh, you’ve fucked him,” is Polly’s greeting to her. 

Not disappointed, but not surprised either. 

Marfa waves off the accusation, “What’s with the pajamas?”

“We are doing themed days,” Dunya explains. 

“If you had called yesterday, we would’ve been naked,” Polly adds. “Today it’s luxury pajamas.” 

Yeah that made about sense for her friends. 

“Is he good at least?” Dunya wants to know, bringing the conversation back. 

Marfa sighs, and then looks over at the door to make sure he’s not going to come back at this exact moment. “Yes.” 

“Remember stay safe also still means no pregnancies or STIs,” Polly tells her. “But have fun. Where is he right now?”

“Out for a run.” 

Dunya giggles, “Marfa’s with a jock.” 

“Okay I’m hanging up now,” Marfa tells them, and she can hear footsteps in the hallway. “Love you both.”

Her friends both blow her kisses as Marfa hangs up on them.


End file.
